When Change Breaks You Open

“How strange that the nature of life is change,

yet the nature of human beings is to resist change.

And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us

are the very ones that can break us open and

help us blossom into who we were meant to be.”
― Elizabeth Lesser

By: Natalie Wiseman Wheeler of Act Naturally Photography

This year has seen a lot of change for me and my family. Change is hard. This year has been HARD. Life is filled with points of transition and turmoil, which are not always easy to embrace. But of course change is built into life, often unavoidable, so we must face it. Change is also sometimes a choice, but that choice can spiral out and create it’s own course you could have never predicted or imagined. Early last year, we made the decision to find an area in Phoenix to live that would provide more opportunity for play, a sense of community, filled with other children with whom our kids could play. We found it, and are now two weeks in our new home and community and LOVING it, but the journey in getting there was bumpy. It required us all to sacrifice in various ways, and required us to move three times in a nine month period. Things happened that we could have never anticipated. I found it very difficult to keep up with my photography, a much needed creative outlet I’ve been depending on for the past few years. I was uninspired and completely drained on many levels. On January 1st, I started my second project 365 (366, this leap year), in hopes of finding the missing motivation. Photography is my rock when I find myself failing to see the beauty that surrounds me. So I took pictures, lots of them…. and I liked some of them ok. But now I can see I was still suspended mid-journey. This particular life transition has taught me to embrace the pauses in my art, in those moments I now know that I am recharging and gathering momentum. Where I was feeling only broken down before, I now feel broken open.

A victory. My children are wild and happy desert children. They have developed callouses on their hands from swinging on the monkey bars (a goal I had for them), my son just learned to ride on 2 wheels, friends and companions line the streets. Though there were points of darkness, the spark of our idea that started it all was moving us along the whole time, just waiting for things to align. This new beginning has begun and surely the next one is lurking around the corner with pains and pleasures all it’s own.

“Light precedes every transition. Whether at the end of a tunnel, through a crack in the door or the flash of an idea, it is always there, heralding a new beginning.”
― Teresa Tsalaky

Natalie is a lifestyle photographer based out of Phoenix, Arizona. She is a mother of two young children who are her main source of inspiration. Her primary goal as a photographer is to get to the core of human connection by capturing authentic, emotive expressions and documenting life as it unfolds.